Anela Ming-Yue Oh - Inflorescence
ANELA MING-YUE OH: Inflorescence
2021 West Bay View Fellowship Exhibition
Anela Ming-Yue Oh is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Oh draws on her Malaysian-Chinese heritage in her work, employing imagery of the natural world as a means towards understanding her personal and cultural history, as an exploration of her present, and as insight into who she may become. Environmental processes of adaptation, transformation, disintegration, and reformation inform Oh’s practice on macrocosmic and intimate scales. Her own experiences of moving around as a child echo her ancestral histories of displacement, connecting past and present in stories of migration, destruction, and reconstruction. Oh’s work mines these personal and historical narratives, grounding ancestral and present traumas into cultural markers.
In her Inflorescence series, Oh incorporates both sides of her mixed race heritage for the first time. Titled after the cluster of flowers on the head of a plant, Inflorescence evokes a time of growth and self realization that is rooted in branching histories. Juxtaposing batik florals with stenciled imagery of okra plants, Oh draws strength from the environmental icons of her dual ancestry. In bringing together her multiple heritages, Oh considers her cultural history as a spiritual resource that provides a sense of strength in the present, rather than acting as a remnant of spent labor and love.
In my artworks, I utilize imagery from my Malaysian-Chinese cultural heritage to draw the line between where I come from and who I will become. As someone who comes from a history of displacement, these cultural markers give me a sense of place and situate me where I am: home. The Inflorescence series is the first to incorporate imagery from both sides of my mixed race heritage. These works use Malaysian batik-inspired blowout forms but also include okra plants stenciled in pulp paint to honor my maternal grandmother and great-grandmother who were sharecroppers in South Carolina. Okra is one of the crops they would grow for themselves in their garden while laboring in the fields on others farms. The labor and love they put into nurturing food for others is a burden I cannot imagine. I come from the strongest of women, these works are a reminder to myself that there are reservoirs of strength I can draw upon from those who have passed away as I try and imagine and construct new futures. Those we have lost: their labor, and their love are resources that are always available to us as we navigate this world.
- Anela Ming-Yue Oh
Angela Ming-Yue Oh: Inflorescence is curated by Eliana Blechman.
About the Artist
Anela Ming-Yue Oh is a multidisciplinary artist that integrates papermaking, ceramics, and fiber together to build new worlds. Her work aims to inspire a sense of hope and proposes visions of a future that includes marginalized voices by choosing to take a joyful and playful approach while discussing immigrant histories. She holds a BFA from School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts and has been an Artist in Residence at Sonoma Ceramics, and a Teaching Artist-in-Residence at the Oxbow School. She is the 2021 West Bay View Foundation Fellow at Dieu Donné.